Update 12-14: Sunday, April 1, 2012.
"US Spydom Praised by British Confreres for Rare Efficiency: List of Suspects Exchanged “In Spirit of Comradeship and Mutual Helpfulness” -- London Times of July 4 Lets Secret Leak Out." (NY Call) [Aug. 23, 1919] Part of continuing coverage of American domestic spying operations that dominated the pages of the Socialist daily The New York Call during the middle of August 1919. This piece quotes a July 4 article in the Times of London by an unnamed British intelligence official [Robert Nathan?] lauding the cooperation between American and British intelligence officials engaged in anti-radical activities. Lt. Col. Nicolas Biddle, head of US Military Intelligence in New York, Cdr. Spencer Eddy, head of US Naval Intelligence, and Department of Justice officials Bruce Bielaski, William M. Offley, and Charles F. DeWoody are praised by name for their zeal and efficiency. "The British officers had access to the files of each and every department, and in like manner the British files were at the disposition of the American confreres," the British intelligence official notes.
"Editor of Tribune and Journal Owner in 'Hist' Book’s Coils: Steinmetz, Electrical Genius; Catholic Editor, and Minister Who Repeated 23rd Psalm are Also Put Down in Post Office’s Little Tabulation." (NY Call) [Aug. 23, 1919] Another passel of names from the leaked mimeographed list of "Radical Suspects" produced by the Post Office Department to aid with mail censorship. The Call writer takes particular pleasure in the inclusion of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and rival editor Garet Garrett of the New York Journal on the list, calling the accusation that Hearst was pro-German "a silly lie" and noting that Garrett -- despite conservative pro-German sympathies before the war -- had been brazen in slinging accusations of pro-Germanism against others during wartime. Also included in this installment are inventor Charles Steinmetz, several leading pacifists, Pittsburgh attorney Jacob Margolis, and Caleb Harrison of the Socialist Labor Party, among others.
"Debs Put on Bourbon Spies’ List: Snooper’s Displeasure Falls on Italian Poet and Socialist Official." (NY Call) [August 24, 1919] The New York Call continues its propaganda campaign against the internal espionage activities of the Wilson administration with this further installment listing targets of the Post Office Department's "Radical Check List." Included in this piece are Socialist orator Gene Debs, poet Arturo Giovanitti, Japanese Socialist K. Aranata, journalist Paul Wallace Hanna, Crystal Eastman of The Liberator, and New York Socialist Party functionary Julius Gerber.
"Membership Bulletin No. 1 - 1921 of the United Communist Party." [circa Feb. 1, 1921]" Internal membership bulletin of the United Communist Party detailing activities of the governing Central Executive Committee of the organization, with one copy mimeographed for each local group, to be distributed by District Organizers to group leaders, read at a meeting, and then destroyed. Karlis Janson ("Scott") had returned from Moscow with a mandate to establish a Pan-American Bureau and RILU Bureau in America. Payment of one day's wages on February 26, 1921 is scheduled in the guise of a "Communist Saturday," borrowed from the Soviet subbotniki of the period. Leaflets and pamphlets are approved for publication with every section of the party instructed to host a for-profit social event on the party's behalf to raise funds for the necessary expenses. The UCP's Federation strategy is detailed, to wit: "Party groups be strengthened and increased in these federations with a view of taking over the propaganda machinery of these federations and eventually dissolving these federations." A wage-related fight with the still unidentified Chicago-based CEC members "Flat" and "Adams" burns hot, with the disaffected pair refusing further party work, suspended from the CEC, and ordered to attend the next session of that body.
"Bases of the Protest of the [CPA] Minority Against the Extension of Appointments to Local Organizers." [c. Feb. 15, 1921] Text of a typewritten factional document by a previously undocumented faction of the underground Communist Party of America, which included members in five of the party's six functioning districts. At issue was the question of appointment versus election of local leaders, with the majority at the 3rd Convention of the CPA deciding to replace democratic election of the two lowest levels of party leaders with centralized appointment. The pro-democracy faction behind this document contended that such a system was a violation of the Comintern's principle of democratic centralism, which was to be established on the basis of "the election of upper party units by those immediately below." The dissident minority details its thinking as follows: "Being appointed by secondary representatives of the CEC by the Sub-District Organizers, the local organizers will represent neither the CEC nor the membership. We are greatly lacking now in comrades qualified to act as organizers in the various Party units. Through the elections in the lower Party units there was an opportunity for new comrades to develop from the rank and file. The appointments will make this practically impossible." An appeal is made to the Communist International to overturn this organizational decision of the American Communist Party.
